Friday, September 27, 2013

The President spoke in Maryland yesterday about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) about to kick in for millions of Americans. He also had a few laughs at the expense of the GOP loonies who keep trying to repeal or stop Obamacare, even if they have to shut down the government.

Just this week, we had Senator Ted Cruz R-Texas attempting a Filibuster (or Fauxlibuster or Sillybuster) to somehow stop the process of implementing Obamacare, with help from Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Members of their own party from John McCain to Senator Bob Corker R-TN have stepped in to tell him off for his idiotic stance that has divided the Republican Party. Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim also reported that Cruz himself doesn't need the Senate Health Care plan because - guess what? - he is covered by his wife's elegant-gold-plated health care plan from her employer Goldman Sachs. Sorry Ted Cruz - you fail at all the things, you big phoney hypocrite!

THE PRESIDENT: It is interesting, though, how over the last couple years, the Republican Party has just spun itself up around this issue. And the fact is the Republicans’ biggest fear at this point is not that the Affordable Care Act will fail. What they’re worried about is it’s going to succeed. (Applause.) I mean, think about it. If it was as bad as they said it was going to be, then they could just go ahead and let it happen and then everybody would hate it so much, and then everybody would vote to repeal it, and that would be the end of it.

So what is it that they’re so scared about?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: You! (Laughter and applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: They have made such a big political issue out of this, trying to scare everybody with lies about “death panels” and “killing granny” -- (laughter) -- right? “Armageddon.” So if it actually works, they’ll look pretty bad. If it actually works, that will mean that everything they were saying really wasn’t true and they were just playing politics.

AUDIENCE: That's right!

THE PRESIDENT: Just the other day, one Republican in Congress said we need to shut this thing down before the marketplaces open and people get to see that they’ll be getting coverage and getting these subsidies because -- and I’m going to quote him here -- he said, “It’s going to prove almost impossible to undo Obamacare.” (Laughter.) Right? So in other words, we’ve got to shut this thing down before people find out that they like it. (Laughter and applause.) That’s a strange argument. Don’t you think that’s a strange argument?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

THE PRESIDENT: And the closer we get, the more desperate they get. I mean, over the last few weeks the rhetoric has just been cranked up to a place I’ve never seen before. One congressman said that Obamacare is “the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed.” (Laughter.) Ever. In the history of America, this is the most dangerous piece of legislation. (Laughter.) Creating a marketplace so people can buy group insurance plans -- the most dangerous ever.

You had a state representative somewhere say that it’s “as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act.”

AUDIENCE: Booo --

THE PRESIDENT: Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that let slave owners get their runaway slaves back.

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, these are quotes. I’m not making this stuff up. And here’s one more that I’ve heard -- I like this one -- we have to -- and I’m quoting here -- “We have to repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens.” Now, I have to say -- that one was from six months ago -- I just want to point out we still have women -- (laughter) -- we still have children, we still have senior citizens. (Applause.)

All this would be funny if it wasn’t so crazy. And a lot of it is just hot air. A lot of it is just politics. I understand that. But now the tea party Republicans have taken it to a whole new level because they’re threatening either to shut down the government, or shut down the entire economy by refusing to let America pay its bills for the first time in history -- unless I agree to gut a law that will help millions of people.

AUDIENCE: Booo --

THE PRESIDENT: Think about this. Shutting down the government just because you don’t like a law that was passed and found constitutional, and because you don’t like the idea of giving people new access to affordable health care -- what kind of idea is that?

“You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a — a governing party,” Obama told the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs.

Obama said his dispute with House Republicans over a budget for the federal government has also entered uncharted territory, with their demand to link a continuing resolution to postponing the unpopular healthcare law.
“What we now have is a ideological fight that’s been mounted in the House of Representatives that says, we’re not going to pass a budget and we will threaten a government shutdown unless we repeal the Affordable Care Act,” Obama said. “We have not seen this in the past, that a budget is contingent on us eliminating a program that was voted on, passed by both chambers of Congress, ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, is two weeks from being fully implemented and that helps 30 million people finally get health care coverage — we’ve never seen that become the issue around a budget battle.”

Congress continues their foolish quest to "Repeal Obamacare." This is a Don Quixote-like quest they say is mandated by the voters who sent them to Washington. Unfortunately, those voters don't realize that A) It's never going to happen because the ACA is the law of the land, and B) Members of their own party in the Senate think closing down the government (again) is moronic and a ridiculous waste of time.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed Wednesday to push ahead with a bill to defund Obamacare or shut down the government -- an effort that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) panned as an "absurd" ploy inspired by tea party "anarchists."
With Congress facing a Sept. 30 deadline to figure out how to keep paying for the federal government, Boehner said in a Capitol Hill news conference that defunding President Barack Obama's health care reform was a key part of that effort."We're going to continue to do everything we can to repeal the president's failed health care law," Boehner said. "This week, the House will pass the CR [continuing resolution] that locks the sequester savings in and defunds Obamacare."
Many mainstream Republicans have repeatedly slammed such an approach as "stupid," and Boehner himself has tried to avoid linking Obamacare to a potential government shutdown.

So each "BIG" investigation reached a dead end. Feeling frustrated, the usual suspects took up the rallying cries of the anti-Obama Libertarians against the NSA thanks to Edward Snowden's leaks. While emoprog Lefties also jumped on the bandwagon - causing strange bedfellows such as Alan Grayson and Sarah Palin (!), all the nerds on MSNBC haven't managed to drag centrist Democrats along with them. In fact, the only thing to come out of the Snowdenfest is that both far-Left and far-Right are praising Vladimir Putin and giving him credit for diplomacy in Syria over our own peace-loving, Nobel-winning President. This wasn't good for the Dems who need to stay cohesive in the 2014 elections, but especially not good for the Tea Party who readily admit they would rather be on the side of a known ex-KGB dictator than the first African-American President.

History is going to judge the Tea Party in the context that they themselves won't recognize - that right now things are not on the edge of the economic apocalypse they keep predicting. The Stock Market is higher than ever under the Obama Administration, and the Deficit is shrinking. So Obama really fails at being a scary "Socialist." All the draconian measures the Republicans insist are "necessary" merely slow down the economy, and help no one. Economists are not going to leave that out of future studies and books, so the GOP is killing its own legacy.

In a statement, the White House said lawmakers should instead cut farm and crop insurance subsidies rather than separate millions of people from "one of our nation's strongest defenses against hunger and poverty."
"These cuts would affect a broad array of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, including working families with children, senior citizens, veterans, and adults who are still looking for work," the White House said.
It was the second time since June that the White House has threatened to veto large cuts in food stamps, the main federal program against hunger.
With Republicans holding a 33-seat advantage in the House, Democrats need to persuade around 20 Republicans to join them to kill the bill. Conversely, Republicans need a party-line vote to prevail. They did that on July 11 roll call to single out food stamps for cuts.

UPDATE: They did it - the heartless GOP Congress cut the Food Stamp Program:

Late Thursday, the House of Representatives voted, 217-210, to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly (and popularly) known as food stamps, by $39 billion over the next 10 years, a 5 percent cut relative to current law.

President Obama on Tuesday night told the American public that the threat of a military strike should stay on the table while the U.S. and its allies take more time to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Assad.
. . . Mr. Obama said that, given Syria's recent offer to give up its chemical weapons, he's asked the leaders of Congress to postpone their vote on the use of force. The administration will work with its allies in the United Nations, he said, to put forward a resolution requiring Assad to give up the weapons. The international community will also give U.N. inspectors an opportunity to report their findings on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
In the meantime, Mr. Obama said, he's ordered the U.S. military to "be in a position to respond" in case diplomatic efforts fail.